I have 2 Dell Inspiron 8600 notebooks, both are now having problems docking station related.

Laptop 1: Problem has just developed - when the laptop is docked, device manager shows COM1 not working and using no resources - in itself not a problem, problem comes in the fact that windows *thinks* COM1 is using the same IRQ as the secondary IDE channel, which now has a conflict, stopping the cd rom from working. If the laptop is booted into windows and then put on the docking station it is fine, but if it is booted up on the docking station (or restarted while connected) COM1 makes IDE2 fail. I've tried a BIOS update which has solved nothing, and I've tried reassigning a different IRQ to COM1 while not docked (as com1 works then) but as soon as it is docked it shows it using no resources and won't allow the irq to change, yet still holds onto IRQ15. I've also tried disabling the com port in the bios, but it seems to only affect the com port on the laptop not on the dock.

Laptop 2: Seems to think it's always docked, and will not turn on unless connected to the mains! Whenever you turn it on without the power adapter plugged into the mains it comes up with an error basically saying "The system is docked but no power was detected" and won't let you go any further. Seems to be a common problem with the only solution i've seen so far being a replacement motherboard - being an old laptop this would not be viable. Anyone have another solution? Note: The battery itself is fine, once it has been started on mains you can remove the power adapter and it continues to work fine, it is just the initial startup.

Obviously being older laptops we are not wanting to spend alot to get them working again - but would also prefer not to replace them quite yet.

As for laptop 2, the error message comes up whether it's docked or not, and it is picking up the correct docked status in the BIOS which is even more confusing (IE the bios will show docked status as undocked, yet still throw up the error), I've tried resetting the defaults and same problem :(

1st Post

I know I'm a little late on this topic but I am having the same issue as laptop 1 for you. I was curious if you were able to find a fix? I tried deleting the profile as suggested and that didn't work for me. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks.